Blekko Reimagines Search Again With izik

Blekko announced that it has launched a new search app for tablets called izik (pronounced EYE-zik). The company says it was built specifically with the iPad and Android tablets in mind.

“Tablets are increasingly getting integrated into our lives, so we wracked our noggins to figure out how we could use our search technology to optimally serve tablet users,” the company says in a blog post. “Not surprisingly, our research revealed that tablets take on a very different role in our lives than laptops and desktops. Laptops are for work; tablets are for fun. Laptops are task-oriented (‘what’s the capital of Bulgaria?’); tablets are more exploratory (‘what’s Jennifer Lopez doing these days?).”

“So, our goal with izik was to move the task-oriented search product we all use on our computers (aka 10 blue links) and turn it into a more fun, tablet-appropriate product,” says blekko. “That means an image-rich layout with an appearance and experience very different than what we’re used to seeing on a laptop.”

The app makes use of tablet gestures, of course. You can swipe horizontally to view results within categories, swipe vertically on the page to find more categories, expand results to see more without leaving the page, swipe through expanded results and pages, and pinch to share on Facebook and Twitter.

This is really a very good experiment by Blekko to know more about the tablet users by providing them with interactive and tablet friendly search engine. Now Blekko can learn more about the behavior of tablet users in many ways by providing them with different types of visual content on the search page.